Pushups at Dawn

May 29, 2009

Just passed a fella on the common here in town, by his cane and gait, looked to be at least in his seventies, and pretty hard at it. He got to the base of the brick gazebo, and there was a DPW truck that had driven on to the sidewalk to get into the center of the common. It looks like it is about to go around the man, until he throws down his cane, head into the gazebo and feet out across the sidewalk they would have driven over, and starts doing hard-at-it pushups, right there in his orange jacket and his wheat-colored boots.

Civil disobedience? One last stand against time and the DPW? Either way, I’m walking the beagle by on the sidewalk and by the time I’m out of real earshot, he’s rising up on his knees and standing and in conversation with the DPW guys in the truck.

What are they saying? Congratulating him on a good set? Telling him to get a room for that? Noticing the Vet pins on his hat and asking him about them? I can’t hear, and the beagle is pulling, onto the next patch of yet-to-be-soiled grass.
So I just leave with a prayer:

Lord, whether I can do push-ups when I’m eighty or not, help me to be able to see things like this every day, to be reminded that what we do with each moment is ours, and to have good conversation with people I don’t know if they do catch me doing push-ups in the park.
Amen.